Confusing Achievements Guide

Yes, I am naming my guide this way because those achievements are still possible to get. That’s why I can’t say those have total glitch or unobtainable so far.

Anyway, this includes the following achievements…
1. The Good Samaritan (Finish every quest.)
2. Old-school combat (Kill 100 infected with silex-tipped fletched ammunition.)
3. Kovac's footsteps (Successfully complete half of Kovac's challenges while keeping the pylon intact.)
4. Kovac's pride and joy! (Successfully complete all of Kovac's challenges while keeping the pylon intact.)
5. Party animal (Finish each of the game's festive quests.)

I suggest you to play the game full solo offline (offline camp) to be sure about these achievements. Yet it’s not fully necessary if you follow rest of the steps but YES, it’s absolutely necessary for Party Animal. It’s also a precaution that until you get all of these you better don’t join other players but again it’s not fully necessary rather at your own risk.

The Good Samaritan

If you think you have completed all the quests of all the npcs including the radio room at bunker and yet you did not get it then go keep talking with every npc again until the quest popup opens. When it does, don’t start any quest from it rather close and go for next npc. But you must do it in one sitting not closing your game. And finally go to Kovak and start and complete his first elite quest “Catch Them All!”. This should unlock your achievement. Note that, due to some reason those who played co-op in their cases as occasional incident this achievement may not work. So to be safe I suggest you that this achievement must work if you played all through solo offline camp. I played solo and it worked. My friend played all through with me and this worked.

However, this does not include any DLC quests or DLC npc.

So, Kovac / Radio Room / Raymond / FAN / Clifton / Roscoe / Kenji / ??? / Super Madison / The Artist counts.

Old-school combat

It’s a killing achievement. And to get it use…

Bow: The Death Blower
Arrow: Silex-tipped fletched arrows

After few kills keep checking your count. This may not work if you use any other bow or arrow etc. If you think you have already killed 100 by these weapons and yet your progress bar is not advancing then just quit the game and may be it will synchronize and you will get it. You can try the same method for any other achievement also.

In Kovac's footsteps / Kovac's pride and joy!

To get any or both of the achievements your pylon should not get a single hit from a single infected ever. If that happens you are not going to get the next achievement almost for sure. All through 8 pylon challenges your status should remain “Intact” to be confirmed. So, if your pylon got any hit (Pylon is attacked) then it is better to delete your character and game and to start from scratch. This is what exactly happened in my case. I got by playing again from scratch.

It’s hard to keep the pylon all through “Intact” and so there is a reserved place in the map where you can make your camp and no infected will ever get in. it’s at the south-west corner (bottom-left) of the main map.


Also its advised that for sure success of these 2 achievements you at least have your trunk, armoury and pylon and those should be at per with your present camp level. However, I can confirm that this works solo and via online camp both ways if done properly.

Party animal

It’s the most complex and problematic achievement of this list and I suggest you to do it as your last achievement.

For this it’s first expected that you have done at least all the quests available in the radio room through your solo offline camp. If so, then first read this full section and understand things before you start to act.

Since the current version of the game is unable to register all the festive quests done, so this does not trigger the achievement. But January 2017 version of the game is last known version when this achievement would work. So our target is to get that version of the game.

So how to get that old version of the game? Previously there were a bit easier method but due to change of policy of steam that method no longer works. Yet we have a new way and for that follow the steps…

Step: 1
First download the appropriate .NET Core from this link…
https://dotnet.microsoft.com/download/dotnet-core
On the page you will see which one is recommended for you and you must download the recommended one. In the next page depending on your OS download the appropriate one…
Just for an example, if you are a Win 10 user and if you are using a 64 bit OS then you should download x64. After download is done when you start to install then If you already had it installed, it will ask you to REPAIR; if not, then it will ask you to install.

Step: 2
Next, download the DepotDownloader tool from github…
https://github.com/SteamRE/DepotDownloader/releases
Download the current version which is a zip file. For example, 2.3.6 was current version in my case.

Step: 3
Now extract the downloaded depot file in a folder, say for example D:\OLDVER and go into that folder by using your file explorer.

Step: 4
Now click beside the path it is showing at top...
This will select the path and then you can replace the text by typing cmd.exe and press enter.
The above process has opened this console / command window.

Step: 5
Now we are going to issue a command which will download the game's 23 January 2017 version means the last known version when this achievement would work.

To do that we need to issue the following command...

dotnet DepotDownloader.dll -app <app id> -depot <depot id> -manifest <manifest no.> -username <username> -password <password>

So, at this point we need the following information...
Game/app ID: 360170 (click[steamdb.info])
Depot ID: 360171 (click[steamdb.info])
Manifest ID: 6980166005766427148 (click[steamdb.info])
**Manifest ID is taken from "Previous manifests" list

Step: 6
Now we construct our command with the appropriate information we obtained...

dotnet DepotDownloader.dll -app 360170 -depot 360171 -manifest 6980166005766427148 -username <username> -password <password>

where the <username> and <password> should be replaced by your steam username and password. So, do it and type the command perfectly in the command window which popped up and press enter.

This will try to connect to steam but if your account is protected by steam guard then it will ask for additional authentication code which steam will provide you via your mobile or email whatever. So, type that and press enter. Let the download will start and wait patiently until it finishes. When it will be done you will get a message that you are disconnected from steam and your command prompt will show. Type exit to close the console window.

Step: 7
Now go into D:\OLDVER if you are already not in. You will see a new folder in it : depots. Go in it until you see the 2 folders Data and Exe. The path to reach it should be: depots\360171\...\

Now you are going to replace your current game files by these old version files / folders. To do it copy together both Data & Exe from here and go to your steam game folder which is generally...
Steam/steamapps/common/How to Survive 2/ and paste there to replace the 2 folders/files there.

Step: 8
You are almost done. Run your game from steam as you normally do. And go to your LOCAL GAME from main menu. Go to radio room and do any festive quest there. When you are done, this should unlock your achievement.
(Note that since you are using old version files so you may not be allowed to join any present online camp and that is logical. It may show an error if you try to do that. This is why local game is a must for it.)

Conclusion

When I started the game one of my friends said that as a completionist I may not be able to get every achievement as at least 2 are broken. But finally I was able to complete all those achievements and then decided to share my experience for completionists. By these methods already one other friend is able to complete her all achievements. Hope this will be helpful for them who gave up hope. Thanks.

[DwX]

2023 11 19 worked thanks

[Sayori]

Downgrading the game to get Party Animal still works in 2023, and I would assume forever, however your method didn't work for me. I downloaded the depicted version of the depot downloader as well as the relevant dotnet core and it didn't work for me. It wouldn't properly log into my account / gave me errors.

So instead I turned to youtube and followed this tutorial on how to use the new version of dd (which doesnt require dotnet and uses powershell instead of cmd)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_8KNOeLqyY&ab_channel=MiekoHikari%21

This worked for me and I got the achievement. Anyone still planning to do this should BACK UP THEIR SAVE. Reverting to an old version of the game wiped some items so if you intend to keep playing make sure you back it up, located in SteamLibrary\steamapps\common\How to Survive 2\Data\Save

Thank you for this guide! Wouldn't have been able to legitimately 100% with out it.

[phrog]

man just use steam achievement manager at this point

[CGFW]

@predestruction U need to delete ur all previous data (char(s) / online/offline camp|(s)) first such that u never played this game before. It should be same like when u first time played it. Then start new char and new camp and make the camp at the place I showed above. Good luck.

[predestruction]

I cant seem to get In Kovac's footsteps / Kovac's pride and joy! can you give maybe additional information?

[𝓟𝓻𝓲𝓷𝓬𝓮𝓼𝓼]

@CGFW I got the "Party Animal" achievement with this method in 6/27/'20. Thank you so much for your help. Kovak approves.